But now he is looking to avoid a repeat of what happened 12 months ago - missed cuts in both the BellSouth Classic and then the Masters.

“I think I made the fateful error of thinking ’I finished second last week, I can only get better’,” said Harrington.

“I think my expectations were high and I was maybe a little bit over-confident. Hopefully I won’t be doing that this year.”

Even with his fantastic closing burst on Sunday – eight under par for his last 12 holes – Harrington was not tempted to take this week off and concentrate solely on the first major of the season.

“I always need to play before any important event. I like to just sharpen my game up,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how much practice you do, you need to be on the golf course to see where your swing is at.

“I’ve only played four tournaments this year. It wouldn’t even cross my mind pulling out this week.

“And I didn’t walk away from last week with bundles of confidence. I played awful for probably half the week – luckily a couple of those days were Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a good time to play bad!”

Australian Adam Scott, the winner at Sawgrass, has also stuck to his decision to play at Sugarloaf and Harrington believes that all those going on to the Masters could benefit.

“It’s great preparation. It’s exactly like Augusta in that you’re being asked to pick clubs in swirling winds, there are a lot of elevation changes and there’s a lot of trouble around the greens,” he added.

Tiger Woods, meanwhile, has opted for practice at home, as has become his norm.

Harrington partnered the world No 1 on Sunday and beat him by seven. But although that came only a week after Woods’ worst finish for five years – 46th at Bay Hill – he still makes him favourite for the Masters.

“I wasn’t watching his swing too much, but I thought his imagination was good and his short game strong,” said Harrington.

“If he’s not swinging too well, that can turn around very quickly. I think he’s got threequarters of what he needs to do well and I think he’ll be right there.

“He makes things happen. If he’s there or thereabouts coming into the back nine, he can make things happen. You want to see some of the quality shots he hits. He’s still the No 1 guy – probably by quite a bit.”

Last player to topple Woods from the top of the rankings was David Duval in 1999 and he made the decision yesterday to withdraw from the Masters.

Duval, Open champion three years ago, made only four cuts last year and has not played anywhere since November, back problems contributing to a total loss of form. He is down to 308th in the world.

The 32-year-old came second, sixth, third and second in four successive visits to Augusta from 1998, but last year shot 79-83 there, then 78-72 in the US Open, 83-78 in the Open and withdrew from the United States PGA championship.

Married a month ago, he told the Associated Press yesterday: “I’m feeling good after taking all this time off and I’m feeling healthy, but I feel like I need to give it more time and make sure I’m healed.

“Of course I’m disappointed, absolutely. The memories of that place are very distinct. There’s a peacefulness and beauty about it that is different from other places.

“It just takes time to repair the damage of three years of bad swinging from injuries.”

Harrington, the same age, commented: “You feel you can go on forever, but when you get injuries you realise you can’t. There are no guarantees in golf - you’ve got to be aware of it, yet you can’t dwell on it.”

Paul Lawrie, Phillip Price, Thomas Bjorn and Jose Maria Olazabal are the other Augusta-bound Europeans playing this week.